self notes and an axe without an edge

sometimes i sift through my own thoughts looking for something to smile to myself about
when i come up empty it's like waves crashing on a hollow beach
there's no shoreline or anything, just empty space
imagine a beach suspended inside of a black hole or orbiting jupiter
no one there to hear the anti-sound of its single psuedo-success
no one present to watch the surf spray up into space
for just one second obscuring the stars in the background

thoughts pass before the lens of my inspection
things not quite like clouds blur my vision occasionally
like two dimensional fog
like translucent nightmares
or the entire life of the most ancient palimpsest spread out upon its own singlular age-old surface
a mix-mashed soup of words, languages, chicken-scratch on the cellar door of my subconscious

just as one cannot throw stones into a stream before fishing a hole
one cannot muddy the waters of thought before sitting down to compose

the axe may cleave the wood in twain with one blow
other times it may take many

.............................

I do not feel myself at times
the me that was has shrunk impossibly small
locked up in a corner of this new consciousness
with only shiny baubles of hazy memories to fawn over
and shreds of something like a life to which to dedicate these sporadic tears
yet the me that still is progresses, digresses, divides into cells of selves, knowledge, fears
the me that still knows how to be is fierce and fragile

the axe in my garage is not sharp or well-versed in the ways of wood
it is, for all intents and purposes, a virgin
and thus barely capable of dreaming of a world it does not know
it simply rests, head down, against the tool bench
waiting for the day when it may rise to fill its function
like the wind and a sail meeting for the first time
on a perfect day they can only imagine

missing chapters

you know how with some people, certain places, or even some events themselves this creepy kind of deja-vu drips down your spine whispering: this should have happened years ago. Not as if whatever you're experiencing has happened before, but as if it is merely out of place along yer highway life. Well that's how I feel about missed chances and spilt beers. And in those instances so long ago, doesn't another part of me in another dimension catch the beer before it falls and proceed along that life-line as if that chance had not been missed at all? I wonder if at any point in the future those alternative histories of self will all meet at a large round table and talk and laugh and joke and spill beer and catch chances. That will be a momentus time indeed. Hope to see you there.

but we were so much older than...

It's March 19th, two-thousand and five anno dominus, and I'm sitting drinking a Dick's Danger Ale in the back of my radical bookstore. Reading Transmetropolitan and surfing the web on one hit of fairly strong LSD and fuck all today 'cause it's alright. Even given the state of things. Even given that our heroes are dead or dying and the new ones don't have names. But that's all alright 'cause I'm sitting here looking at a Chandler & Price Platten Press from the 1930s, wiping beer off my chin and drooling over all the opportunities. I've been trying to come up with a word for a dream that comes true before it's time, before you want it to, and the closest thing I've got so far is anachromorph. But what about a deluge of dreams? How does one struggle in such a ferocious current? I'm twenty-two and have two babies, a beautiful woman, a successful bookstore, a printing press, fantastic friends that sometimes seem so far away but the whole world is here at my fingertips thanks to this buzzing techno-den three screens deep in macintosh hardware, surrounded by the nicest library I've ever seen concentrated in one place before. It's no wonder I'm at a loss for words, I'm drowning in them all the time. It doesn't help when you do some simple calculations and realize that, barring the advances of medical technology that will allow you to live for two hundred years, you've only got enough time left to read a few thousand more books so you start thinking that if a picture is worth a thousand words... needless to say I've been neck deep wading thru our graphic novels and comic books for the last three months now, mind agape at the endless possibilities of the medium, the pretty colors, the differences in depth of characters and the stunning pen and ink architectural backgrounds (Honour Among Punks).
It's always an interesting feeling when the world increases exponentially in size thanks to one tiny thought, one simple doorway, one new key. It makes me first simper down and cower at the overwhelming enormity of it all before realizing that there are new heroes out there and I'm one of them. The life I am living could be someone else's dream. Ego-centrism aside, but isn't that what blogging is partially for? lost amid this specific daily monotonous caterwaul of wasted dreams
why do I allow them to linger so?
passing over my convex consciousness like water or tears on a hot rock
my dreams die screaming and steaming out their malformed messages
as shadows pressed against the reeling walls of my sense of self
forever shrinking it seems.

I must get used to repetition and routine
practiced observations and actions become second nature
but I fear my second nature may become twisted by my aversion to habit
and wander off, lost in its own infinitesimal apologetic ego
more to follow, disjointed thoughts but joy resides within.

Further trips down the rabbit hole & praises for Rachel Corrie on the 2nd anniversary of her death

Drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Paul Wolfowitz heading the World Bank? Hunter S. Thompson dead? You call this progress? You call this Green? What paltry excuse we have for activism in this great nation of spineless conformists and consumers has been assailed by the weakly motivated. What once was a grand tradition of political unrest, from Thoreau on down to the Weather Underground, has become like everything else, mediocre and only half thought out. The ranks of protesters, like those of journalists, economists, teachers, and all these so-called professional occupations have been swelled by uneducated buffoons not ripe enough to be useful to anyone's cause and a touch too rotten to please the stomach, much less the head. Like genetically modified foods, the quality of our very consciouness is being pillaged by a stink of sameness. But when we all become too much alike, or even too specified in our "individual" fields, we lose the ability to adapt to our surroundings, especially if they were to change suddenly. Forgive this little rant. I'm attempting to get some of my more obscure political thoughts in order and felt the need to share it with this glowing no-one I talk to all the time. Thanks everybody who might eventually take the time to find this. I hope we're not too fucked to pull out of this nose dive. But even if we can't, I look forward to the future with an open heart, ready to embrace whatever changes may come my way. I can only wish you the same.

In other, more important matters, today marks the two year anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. A courageous young political activist deliberately murdered by the Israeli military, whose case was covered up with the help of a complicit and corrupt American government and, after being highlighted by the mainstream medias for a short time was dropped and virtually forgotten by the masses. I only met Rachel a few times here in Olympia, she volunteered at our bookstore briefly right when we started up and was a bright, intelligent human being, just like those she was attempting to defend. Thank you Rachel, for giving us something else to believe in and struggle for. Thank you for uniting many of us across our myriad causes and allowing new channels of communication between Rafah and Olympia to reach some of those heights you only dreamed of. Your parents, family and friends have filed two lawsuits, one against the Israeli Government for their refusal to cooperate and produce even a statisfactory investigation of Rachel's death, and one lawsuit against the Caterpillar Corporation for knowingly selling their products for use in human rights abuses. These cases will probably never get very much media attention and will eventually live out their fruition say, six to ten years down the line in two very large sums of money settled in civil instead of crimal court (where it belongs) and the Corries will walk away with a ton of dirty money which they will clean by giving the bulk of it to good people I would imagine, people in Rafah and here in Olympia who will do their parts, however small, to further this war of ours against the machinery of capitalism, neo-liberal globalisation and injustice.